Oil powers agree prices too high: UK's Brown

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - The world's top oil producers and consumers now agree that oil prices hovering near a $140 a barrel record are too high, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Sunday, signaling a change of heart by producers.

"What we've got here ... is agreement that the oil price is too high," Brown told a briefing on the sidelines of emergency talks in Jeddah, where leading energy policy makers and executives are discussing measures to tame the oil price.

"The significance is that the producers are saying this, that the current oil price is detrimental and that it is causing serious damage, that the current price is too high."

When major oil producers and consumers met in April, as oil prices traded at around $120 a barrel, there had been no public agreement that prices were too high.

But Saudi Arabia has lately taken action to try to stem the unrelenting rally in prices, boosting output in June and promising a second increase in July to 9.7 million barrels per day (bpd), its highest rate in decades.

While both sides fear the damage that soaring prices could wreak on the world economy, big producers also worry that high prices could drive investment into alternative fuels that would eventually undermine demand for their crude oil.

(Reporting by David Clarke; Editing by Paul Bolding)